Timsbury Testing

Preliminary results indicate 20% additional thrust. Oceanfoil® hosted His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh during a visit to the Warsash Maritime Academy's Ship Handling Centre on Timsbury Lake, near Romsey, on Tuesday, 21 May. The Duke of Edinburgh was visiting the facility to view the scale-model testing of ships fitted with wingsail rigs designed by Oceanfoil®.

The Duke of Edinburgh viewed a demonstration by the manned-model ‘Endurance’, a 1/40 scale model of a 150,000 ton ore-carrier, which was piloted by Captain Roger Francis of Oceanfoil®. ‘Endurance’ was fitted with six 1/40 scale model Oceanfoil® wingsail rigs and performed two passes and a variety of docking manoeuvres for The Duke of Edinburgh.

Initial results of the scale model tests of the Oceanfoil® wingsails installed on the model ore carrier indicate that deploying the wingsails provided additional thrust of up to 20%. Whilst these initial results are subject to additional testing and verification, such additional thrust would indicate that full scale Oceanfoil® wingsails could be able to provide reduction in fuel consumption for merchant vessels of between 15 and 20%.

These preliminary results confirm the conclusion of Oceanfoil®’s computer analysis which indicated that Oceanfoil®’s revised and improved design should provide additional benefits over and above those achieved on the original wingsails installed on the 6,000 ton cargo ship Ashington during sea-trials in 1986/7. During those trials the Ashington logged reductions in fuel consumption of between 10 and 15 per cent over a number of voyages.

“We are very pleased to have successfully demonstrated the application of our wingsail designs to His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh. With the cost of fuel for ocean-going vessels increasing year-on-year, we are developing our wingsail designs for use by the marine-transport sector as a potential cost saving measure. The ability to harness the wind as an additional power source to enable a reduction in fuel consumption is now verging on necessity if the maritime transport industry is to remain cost-efficient and offers exciting prospects for fuel efficiency and significant cost savings within a matter of years.”

Oceanfoil® will complete further tests before producing full-scale prototypes of its wingsail design for use in sea trials in the New Year.

The Duke of Edinburgh was received by Her Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Hampshire, Dame Mary Fagan DCVO JP, and met representatives from Oceanfoil®, Southampton Solent University, and Warsash Maritime Academy.

Technology

Oceanfoil®’s fuel-assist aerofoil technology uses wingsails to capture effective directional thrust from wind power. Automatically controlled from a computer installed on the bridge and not requiring any crew resource, wingsails are a proven technology.
Oceanfoil®’s revised and improved design of wingsails will be available for retrofitting from the beginning of…

Investors

In an industry that is demanding cost-cutting measures with attractive payback periods from proven technologies, Oceanfoil®’s double-digit savings potential is a promising investment opportunity for ship owners and private capital alike. Oceanfoil® brings together the engineering, naval architecture and funding expertise to develop and exploit the commercial potential of aerofoil…